Livestock production, which includes
the irrigation of livestock feed crops, accounts for the greatest consumption
of water in the West. Such a water-intensive industry is poorly suited to the
arid West. Dewatering of rivers and groundwater pumping for irrigation is a
major cause of species decline throughout the region, and water development
for agriculture is costly to taxpayers.

When people think of California and water,
they often imagine sprawling cities dotted liberally with swimming pools and
watered lawns; legions of vain auto owners washing their SUVs, sports cars,
and minivans; and endless acres of verdant golf courses - all sucking down rivers
both near and far. This image is partly correct - rivers are going dry. But
the major reason is not direct consumption by humans - urbanites running sprinklers
on their front yards and the like. In California, the major user of water is
agriculture, and within agriculture, the thirstiest commodity is the cow.

Overall, agriculture accounts for 83 percent of all water used in California.
It's true that California grows the majority of America's fruits and vegetables,
so liberal use of water by its agricultural sector would not be unexpected.
However, few people would suspect that growing feed for cattle is the predominant
agricultural use of water in California. In 1997, 1.7 million acres of the state
were planted to alfalfa alone. Irrigated pasture and hayfields consume more
water than any other single crop in California - more than a third of all irrigation
water. 1 Together, alfalfa and hay
and pasturage account for approximately half of all water used in the state.

The story is similar in other western states. In Colorado, some 25 percent of
all water consumed goes to alfalfa crops. 2
In Montana, agriculture takes 97 percent of all water used in the state, and
just about the only irrigated crop there is hay and pasture forage; more than
5 million acres in the state are irrigated hay meadows. 3
In Nevada - the most arid state in the country - domestic water use amounted
to 9.8 million gallons a day in 1993. By contrast, agriculture used 2.8 billion
gallons of water per day. 4 Altogether,
agriculture uses 83 percent of Nevada's water
5 - and the major crop is hay for cattle fodder. In Nevada, while cow
pastures are flood irrigated, wetlands at wildlife refuges and the state's rivers
often go bone-dry. 6

Cows are poorly adapted to arid environments. They are profligate consumers
of water. Beef production demands an estimated 3,430 gallons of water just to
produce one steak! 7 Most western
rangelands simply don't provide enough forage alone - because the climate is
too dry - to run livestock economically. Supplemental feed and irrigated pasture
are also needed. Many of the ecological and health impacts of livestock production
in the West are associated with the use and abuse of water: the livestock industry
alters water quantity and quality and water flow regimes.

The removal of water from streams and aquifers for irrigation threatens many
species with local extinction. Rivers and springs are often completely dewatered.
According to the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, some 3,778
miles of river are dewatered in Montana annually.
8 Dewatering of streams is a major factor in the decline of many fish
species across the West, including most native trout and many salmon stocks.

Dewatering leaves fish stranded in shallow pools, where they are more vulnerable
to predators. Fish eggs can be left high and dry when water levels drop during
the irrigation season. Many young fish are diverted, along with portions of
their streams, into irrigation canals; they subsequently die when water ceases
to flow down the canal. In one study in the Bitterroot Valley, Montana, up to
90 percent of the annual production of young westslope cutthroat trout - a species
petitioned for listing under the Endangered Species Act - was lost out of some
streams because of irrigation canals. Dewatering also leads to higher water
temperatures in streams and concentrates pollutants - all to the detriment of
native aquatic life.

Another problem is that irrigation exacerbates an already naturally high loss
of water from the land into the atmosphere. Huge amounts of water evaporate
from storage reservoirs or are transpired into the air by water-hogging crops,
such as alfalfa.

Irrigation leads not only to the concentration of pollutants already in streams:
new pollutants enter the water, thanks to the diversion of water onto fields
and the subsequent return of some of that water to groundwater or surface water
bodies. Contaminants picked up from fields include excess nitrogen and minerals
leached out of the irrigated soils. In Nevada, for instance, used irrigation
water diverted back into the Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge is so full
of mercury, selenium, and boron leached from agricultural fields that waterfowl
and other wildlife at the refuge are being adversely affected.
9 A similar problem with polluted irrigation return water has been documented
at Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge in California.
10

Groundwater pumping has diminished or destroyed water sources for numerous species
around the West. In southern Idaho, water is pumped out of the aquifer to grow
hay; as a consequence of this activity, Bruneau Hot Springs - sole habitat for
the Bruneau Hot Springsnail - has been drying up. The snail was listed as endangered
by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1993. Similar groundwater depletion
once threatened a host of unique fish and snail species at Ash Meadows in Nevada.
Fortunately for these species, the offending agricultural operations were purchased
and retired to create Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, but other aquatic
species haven't been so lucky. Groundwater pumping for irrigation has already
caused some desert fish to go extinct.
11

Dewatering of streams and aquifers has led to a shrinkage in riparian vegetation
and naturally subirrigated lands (such as valley bottom meadows) around the
West. This reduction in riparian habitat has serious consequences for wildlife,
since an estimated 70 to 80 percent of all western species - plants and animals
- are dependent on these thin zones of moisture for survival.
12

What is particularly ironic about livestock-caused stream dewatering is that
it usually makes little economic sense. In much of the West, the value of leaving
water in the river to sustain native fisheries or to provide for water-based
recreation is often vastly greater than that of the beef produced with the same
amount of water. 13 Leaving water
in the river to support fishing may ultimately be far more beneficial to local
economies than using it for irrigation. 14
Yet we regularly sacrifice the fish to produce beef - a commodity that is already
produced more economically and with less environmental impact in other, naturally
wetter, parts of the country.

In biology, it can be useful to categorize causative factors as either proximate
or ultimate. In the arid West, livestock production is often the ultimate cause
of species endangerment, though other factors, often more readily recognized,
may be proximate causes. Thus, many dams in the West are proving to be ecological
disasters, yet the dams themselves are only proximate causes of deteriorating
aquatic ecosystems. Many dams would not have been built but for the demand for
water storage for irrigation. Other uses, such as recreation or hydropower production,
were often secondary rationalizations for dam construction. Without livestock
production, it's likely that many fewer dams would exist in the West.

Dams fragment aquatic systems, preventing free movement of species such as salmon.
Dams obviously flood habitat, too, making it unusable for many species. For
instance, several species of Snake River snails are now listed under the Endangered
Species Act because of dam construction and flooding of the river channel. The
change in flow regime and water temperature occasioned by the construction of
dams in the Colorado River system has led to the decline of the bonytail chub,
the Colorado pikeminnow, the razorback sucker, and the humpback chub.
15 Since most of these dams were constructed for water storage - with
the bulk used for irrigation, mainly of livestock feed - partial blame for the
decline in these native species lies with the livestock industry.

Taxpayers carry much of the burden for western water projects that benefit ranchers
and the livestock industry. A review of Bureau of Reclamation water projects
found that most western irrigation projects are subsidized in three ways.
16 First, irrigators often receive no-interest or extremely low-interest
loans for project construction, with repayments scheduled over very long time
periods - forty or fifty years or longer. Second, many project costs are forgiven
and charged instead to taxpayers, since the projects are seen as having "public
benefits," such as recreation. Third, Congress frequently legislates repayment
relief.

In a 1996 review of 133 federally funded irrigation projects, the General Accounting
Office found that for only 14 projects had irrigators paid, or were scheduled
to pay, their entire allotted share of construction costs. In nearly 90 percent
of the water projects, irrigation assistance and/or charge-offs accounted for
payment or relief of some portion of the irrigators' repayment obligation. 17

And in a 1988 study conducted for Congressman George Miller, irrigators on the
Vernal Unit of the Central Utah Project paid only $3.68 per acre-foot for water
that cost the government $204.60 per acre-foot to deliver.
18 Such discrepancies between the cost of water storage and delivery
and what irrigators ultimately pay are widespread throughout the West.

Livestock also produce actual, not merely economic, waste. Agriculture is the
greatest source for nonpoint water pollution (that deriving from an extensive
area, such as a farm field or a grazed hillside, rather than a single site,
such as the waste pipe of a factory) in the United States.
19 Pollutants from livestock agriculture include sediments as well as
animal waste. Nationwide, the output of livestock manure is more than 130 times
that of human waste - yet most of the livestock waste enters waterways and groundwater
untreated. The Environmental Protection Agency has found that of all rivers
it has identified as "impaired" in some way, agricultural runoff,
including animal waste, is the culprit in 60 percent of the cases.
20 And cattle are the biggest producers of livestock manure: more than
1.2 billion tons per year. 21

The heavy input of phosphorus and nitrogen from manure can elevate microbial
activity in streams and lakes, consequently driving oxygen levels down and harming
other aquatic organisms. 22 Animal
wastes also carry diseases that can be transmitted to humans via water sources.
Among the infectious diseases that can be acquired from livestock-contaminated
water are salmonellosis, Johne's disease, leptospirosis, anthrax, listeriosis,
tetanus, tularemia, erysipelas, and colibacillosis. 23
Again, neither the cost of treating domestic water supplies to make water
safe for human consumption nor the cost of disease outbreaks caused by waterborne
pathogens originating with the livestock industry are carried by livestock producers.

Livestock affect water quality and quantity through their impact on vegetation
and soils. Trampling compacts soils, reducing water infiltration, which in turn
leads to greater overland flow and flooding.
24 Trampling also can reduce late-season stream flows by as much as half.
The removal and destruction of streamside vegetation by livestock increases
bank erosion and allows the current to increase speed and downcutting capability.
25 Livestock damage to watersheds is the most serious cause of excess
sedimentation (that is, above the levels of natural erosion) in much of the
West. Sedimentation hurts trout and salmon, as well as many lesser known aquatic
species, such as freshwater snails. 26

According to a 1998 study, dams and other water developments are responsible
for the endangerment of 30 percent of all species listed as threatened or endangered
in the United States. 27 Therefore,
it should not be surprising that half of the fish species found west of the
Continental Divide are listed, or are candidates for listing, under the Endangered
Species Act. 28 Of course, livestock
production isn't the only reason for these declines, but it plays a major role
in many cases. In addition to the livestock impacts to water and streams enumerated
above, livestock can threaten fish species indirectly, by degrading habitat
to the point that nonnative fish gain competitive advantage.

In the moisture-limited West, raising water-loving livestock makes about as
much sense as raising oranges in Alaska. If you can get most of your costs subsidized,
and if you and society are willing to ignore the environmental consequences,
it can be done. However, as more of the true costs of western livestock production
are realized, including the cost in precious water resources, society may want
to reconsider this folly.

Most agricultural water [in the West] grows low-value crops. In California,
for example, nearly 1 million acres of irrigated pasture requires about 4.2
million acre-feet of water per year - as much as an urban population of 23 million.
Pasture, though it is the single largest water user in California, is an extremely
low-value crop.

19. See Figure 9 in U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Water Quality
Inventory: 1998 Report to Congress, EPA 841-R-00-001, www.epa.gov/ow/resources/brochure/.

20. Ibid.

21. U.S. Senate Committee, Animal Waste Pollution in America: An Emerging
National Problem, report by Minority Staff of the United States Committee
on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forests (Washington, D.C., 1997).